Life in the World of Inequalities

Poverty is injustice

Fighting poverty is up to you, no matter what you do.

Hey! I think it's time I talked about class status, wealth, and poverty. In my short life, I’ve come across thousands of people, yes, thousands, though not enough to say I’ve met millions. Many of these people come from deprived homes, and their hope is always to get the best they can, to improve their lives and the lives of their families.

A lot of them complain bitterly about the massive wealth disparity in the world; the gap between the rich and the poor. But the truth is, they’ll never get things to go their way by just complaining, so why waste their breath? 

I understand their frustration with the state of the world, where some people work hard to get where they are, while others inherit their wealth through fortune. And then, there are those who work hard all their lives and still have nothing to show for it especially in countries like my home continent, Africa.

Either way, it’s all down to luck. Luck is a factor. Some people win or inherit wealth, and every human being is entitled to their share of luck. 

While I sympathize with their concerns, I’ve come to accept that inequality is part of life—just call it life. As long as humanity exists, there will always be this disparity. We will never be equal. Think of it like the parallel lines we learned about in geometry; they’ll never meet. We will always have the smart and the not-so-smart, the rich and the poor, the tall and the short, developed and developing countries (think of the West and Africa), leaders and followers, just to name a few.

Social Darwinism will always be at play. Classes will continue to exist as long as capitalism and other measures of wealth are in place. People will fight and protest against the idea of class warfare, but will we ever find a solution? For instance, in the U.S., the wealth of the top 1% is equivalent to that of the bottom 99%. It’s unbelievable, but real. As Cornel West would say, it’s a moral absurdity.

If you were born rich, thank God every day for the rest of your life. If not, still thank God and hope you can pull yourself out of poverty one day. To many, poverty feels like a curse, an illness. Nobody wants to be poor or to associate with the have-nots. Why else would people do all kinds of dubious things in the name of money or conquering poverty?

How long?

God help mankind. We can’t all be rich otherwise, who would be the janitor, the security guard, the bus driver, the cook, the mail carrier, or the messenger? These are the people we sometimes look down on or even disrespect. Think about it.

Happy first day of December.

~Pal Ron